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Beneficial Insects in the Garden

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Hello regular readers! I’m trying something new today. Sam from organiclesson.com offered to submit a guest blog and I’ve taken him up on it. It saves me thinking up a new idea (a new idea every day for over two years now: it’s becoming quite a challenge!)… and allows me to introduce information beyond my normal field of competency.

Enjoy!

7 Beneficial Insects for Garden Pest Control

Gardeners can rejoice and start to get their hands dirty with the season well under way. Unfortunately, this also means that the garden pests are back to terrorize the beautiful gardens and lawns. As an organic gardener, the last thing you would want to do is to resort to chemical pesticide to get rid of these unwanted pests. Fortunately, there is a sustainable way to do so. Let us introduce the use of beneficial insects. This is a biological control method that utilizes other insects to do the job of controlling the pest population. Not all insects are bad. There are many good bugs that will eat the pests and won’t do any damage to your plants. To learn more about these beneficial insects, check out the following infographic by Organic Lesson. In this infographic, you can learn about seven specific insects you may want to introduce to your garden to combat pests like aphids and caterpillars.

Before you introduce these beneficial insects, make sure you follow these steps. First, make sure the act of importing the beneficial insects does not go against any local or state regulations. Most states and provinces publish a list of insects that do not require import permits. It might also be a good idea to let your neighbors know. If anything, they may be facing the same pest issues as you are, so the management of the garden pests could become a cooperative effort. Last but not least, make sure your garden environment is suited for the beneficial insects. For example, you don’t want the ladybugs to fly away the same day you introduce them due to various reasons such as a lack of prey or foliage.